post Diwali

The forearm of my right arm hurts. It could be from chopping, stirring heavy curries or carrying heavy shopping bags. We pulled off a double bonanza Diwali weekend; had two bunches of friends over consecutively on saturday night and sunday afternoon. Not only did the food come out great, but we cleaned the flat (it took me 2.5 months, but I finally got him to unpack his last 2 bags), and did proper Diwali decorations, with tealights floating in glass bowls with flowers, and incense sticks to amuse our lone Ganesh idol. It was all very grown up.

The weekend established that the bear and I are a good team. Although we did have a happy little helper in the form of my cousin whom I still think of as a kid, but who is doing a masters in London. We are like her LG's - local guardians! How's that for ancient?

Mishaps did happen of course, the dal tasted like egg curry and the lamb curry had chicken in it because Tesco opens at noon on a sunday and our 2nd batch of guests was arriving at one. I didn't manage to look as fantastic as planned and only wore a kurta with jeans rather than the full blown lehenga thing I'd planned.

Afterwards, when the kitchen sink was smoking from the vigorous relays of washing up and the leftovers were packed away in tupperware, we blew out the candles and went for a walk by the river. I didn't say the very gooey things that kept welling up in my heart to the bear. I didn't say I had never expected to be this happy, and that it was very strange how he somehow mostly always manages to do exactly what I consider to be the best case scenario (like lighting the same candles I was thinking of lighting, or coming out and telling me I had been right about something I was inwardly gloating about, or like asking me to marry him a second time just when I was secretly thinking that the first proposal hadn't been perfect). I didn't tell him that he was exactly what I have been looking for and whining for and writing bad poetry about, for all these years. It's like soulmates, and it's very weird.